TRAGIC Poem: mary jane, by Olivia Brody

mary jane- a response to lies by ana sage

my problem is that i smell my vanilla perfume and i think of me and of you and i think of
guns and white nectarines and then when i smell my vanilla perfume it starts to smell kind
of like weed
and my vanilla perfume starts to smell too much like you
and then i think of smoked salmon bagels and candy cereal and how you texted me at 4
in the morning
and i can just see your body crumpling over the hood of the car and impaled on your own
knife
when i said smoke i thought of what wildfires leave behind when they die out
but you thought of last night at 4 in the morning and 911 calls
my problem is that when i smell my vanilla perfume
i think of what you wrote on the decrepit wall above the baseball diamond and the chalk
smeared across my fingers when i reached out to touch it
i think of my fingers interlaced with yours and how your hands were always too cold and
how they shook
i can picture your funeral and how i would scream at your mother for being your mother
i would scream at everyone is the pews that this was your fault
and that your white chalk outline on the fresh tar was my fault
and that i ate white nectarines last night at 4 in the morning while my phone buzzed and i
knew it was you
and i didn’t pick up
because i knew it was you
and now when i smell my vanilla perfume
it smells extra sweet, like a rotting corpse.

Author: poetryfest

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